Kick'n'dance Vinyl & CDs

Review: UK house mainstay Nail has some long roots that go all the way back to the Nottingham scene of the mid-nineties as part of the DiY crew, while he also explored more downtempo sounds as one half of Bent. He is still very much kicking out the jams all these decades on, always with a nice sharp groove and crisp hi hats. That is the case again here with his Mercy EP on Kick-n-Dance which ones with the striped back and infectious 'Broccoli', gets more deep and vibes with 'Lettuce' and comes doused in soul in the case of the flipside opener 'Whas Happenin' which channels Marvin Gaye. 'Spring Greens' is another smart tech house closer that does everything right.

Review: New York's Paradise Garage always had a reputation for championing "knocky" sounds, with its staple genre, garage house, and its auditory coeval, speed garage, co-emphasising a swiftly swung open-and-close hi-hat pattern. But Berlin native Nat Wendrell, now carrying the formative 4x4 garage torch, proves that garage house swing can sound lacklustre even in Paradise: compared even to those earliest releases, these are devilishly swung tunes. The 'Embrasse' EP is far "knockier" and more swung than most other garage house releases that came before it, where each perc and one-shot is put in its draggiest, latest possible rhythmic place. 'What I Need', meanwhile, stands out here as the Strictly Rhythm DX7 organiser of choice, with a deeply nostalgic "yeah-yeah" acting as a focal vocal.